The remnants of the Poles were discovered by locals a couple of days ago during the tidying up of the grounds of the Orthodox Birth of Holiest Mother of God cathedral. Next to the bones were gun shells (from Soviet weapons, including a Nagan-type gun, claims Jaroslav Bernikovich from a local branch of the opposition movement For Freedom), and in the remnants of the clothes - a pack of cigarettes from the Warsaw-based factory Progress.
'We've discovered 20-30 bodies. There can be more deeper down,' says father Sarhey Gramyka, the parish priest. Father Gramyka explains that because of the smell, the bones have been covered with earth again. Gazeta has learned unofficially that this was demanded by the local prosecutor's office. Father Gramyka has held a service in the intention of the victims.
Hlybokaye district prosecutor Anatol Servyukou has confirmed for Gazeta that his office is investigating the case. He refused to say why the bones had been buried without an examination.
'The remnants date back to the Great Patriotic War period when Hlybokaye was under German occupation. That's all I can day at this point,' Mr Servyukou told Gazeta.
'These are probably the remains of Polish administration officials, intellectuals or officers who were arrested by the NKVD after Poland's eastern territories had been invaded by the Soviets on 17 September 1939,' says Belarussian historian, Igar Kuznyatsou, who has long researched the activities of the Soviet terror apparatus. According to him, there are witness reports about the NKVD executing Polish prisoners in Hlybokaye in spring 1940 and summer 1941, shortly before the town was seized by the Germans.
If this is the case, this would be yet another chapter of what has become known as the Katyn massacre - the execution of 14,736 prisoners whose bodies the NKVD buried in Katyn near Smolensk, Mednoye near Kalinin (today Tver), and Pyatikhatki near Kharkov.
The most mysterious chapter of that massacre was the death of at least 7,315 (according to other sources, over 8,600) Poles who were arrested by the NKVD in Poland's then-eastern territories. Some of them are certainly buried in Bykovnia near Kyiv (where remnants of Polish officers were recently discovered) and in Kurapaty near Minsk. The places were thousands more Poles are buried remain unknown.
The Poles were executed by special NKVD units sent directly from Moscow. Five such units operated in what is now Belarus. One of them, led by Lt Nikolai Kozhevnikov, operated in Vileyka near Hlybokaye.
Mr Kuznyatsou stresses: 'If the authorities don't want to move the bodies, this means that victims of Soviet reprisals have been discovered. In the case of Nazi crimes, exhumations are ordered without delay.'
Belarussian president Alexander Lukashenka is known to be an admirer of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the creator of NKVD, who was born in what is now Belarus, and of Joseph Stalin. Belarus is preparing today for grand celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union's invasion of Poland, which is to be a great display of the country's unity. In Brest, where the Wehrmacht and the Red Army held a joint parade in September 1939, a monument commemorating the 'bright day of 17 September' is to be unveiled.
Andrzej Przewoźnik, head of the Council for the Protection of Memory of Struggle and Martyrdom, for Gazeta:
We will ask the Belarussian authorities to allow our experts to examine the situation. Perhaps bodies of NKVD victims have been discovered. I know there was an NKVD prison nears Hlybokaye. Our collaboration with Belarus has improved in the last couple of years, we're carrying out several joint projects and I hope no one makes things difficult for us in this case.
Translated by Marcin Wawrzyńczak
Źródło: Gazeta Wyborcza
